On the day that the Supreme Court begins to hear argument in the federal government’s reference concerning reform of the Senate (In the Matter of a Reference by the Governor in Council concerning reform of the Senate, as set out in Order P.C. 2013-70, dated February 1, 2013), it is appropriate, perhaps, to point out that the judgment by Québec’s Court of Appeal in a reference begun by the provincial government is in fact available in English.

Projet de loi fédéral relatif au sénat (Re) 2013 QCCA 1807 was summarized by SOQUIJ for Slaw last Sunday, and, . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on technology, research and practice.

Technology

Passphrases Can Help You Remember Complex Passwords
Dan Pinnington

Creating a long, unique, complex (letters in upper and lower case, numbers and symbols) and random password for every service you use is the best practice standard when it comes to using secure and strong passwords.MP900390550 If you follow this advice however, your passwords will be an unreadable mix of letters, numbers and characters. . . .

Research

When You . . . [more]

Law firms are spoiled for choice when it comes to cloud computing services. You can place any or all of your practice technology somewhere other than your office. The maturing of the cloud world, and the seemingly endless proliferation of open source software, create additional options. If you are on the fence about where your information lives, these may push you over.

A challenge of using cloud or hosted Web services is the same kind of change that occurs on your desktop. Companies shut down products, change their business model and start charging for something that was free, or go . . . [more]

IP Osgoode has put online a series of videos of the panel discussions held during their symposium on User-Generated Content (UGC) Under Canadian Copyright Law held at Osgoode Hall Law School a month ago. You can see all six of the videos on the IPOsgoode site or view them on YouTube, the links for which are below:

• Video I: Practical Examples of UGC – Daniel Rosen, Gordon Duggan, Victor Nabhan (Panel Chair)
• Video II: Legal Aspects of UGC – Victor Nabhan, Samuel Trosow, Leonard Glickman, Pina D’Agostino (Panel Chair)
• Video III: Specific UGC Legal Aspects – Eva

. . . [more]

After a 20 year campaign by TV lobbyists, on 31 October the UK Court of Appeal welcomed cameras into their courtrooms.

Live transmissions will operate with a 70-second delay so that the judges can halt broadcasts if there is evidence that needs to be excluded for legal reasons or to screen out offensive language.

Proponents believe it will assist the public in understanding the way courts work and to see the way justice is delivered. Not all jurists are in favour: read the views of Helena Kennedy Q.C. here. . . . [more]

Lateral hiring of partners or associates occurs at firms of every size, and is becoming far more common. In addition to reviewing the transferring lawyer’s credentials and suitability, the transferring lawyer and firm will need to identify and deal with potential conflicts of interest that may arise with respect to clients at the transferring lawyer’s previous firm, and in particular, clients for whom the transferring lawyer worked.

This critical task is not as easy as it might seem on first thought. The hiring firm must have sufficient information to complete an internal conflicts check, while at the same time making . . . [more]

In Flander’s Fields
by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow . . . [more]

I’ve spent a lot of time over recent months thinking about alternative business structures and how to think about regulatory liberalization.

Except in very limited circumstances[1], only lawyers[2] can have an ownership interest in a legal practice whether organized as a partnership, a limited partnership or a professional corporation. As a practical matter, only legal and strictly ancillary services can be offered to clients by a legal practice.

Individuals and small businesses are overwhelmingly served by lawyers in sole practice or in small firms. Lawyers sell their time to clients. Time is measured in billable hours. The . . . [more]

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada's award-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from forty-one recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Rule of Law   2. Environmental Law and Litigation   3. Legal Feeds   4. Kelly Santini LLP’s Employment Law Blog for the Suddenly Unemployed    5. Henry J. Chang’s Canada-US Immigration Blog

Currently Law Society Rules do not allow for non-lawyer ownership. While lawyers working for the government can have an attorney general who isn’t a lawyer, and individual lawyers are free to work ‘in house’ for corporations whose shareholders are not lawyers; when it comes to operating a law firm in Canada, lawyers have to be in control.

The UK and Australia allow for different legal business structures, more specifically they allow for non-licensee ownership and surprisingly with little repercussions. Advocates for liberalizing business structures say that this will lead to affordable legal services. There are a few examples of . . . [more]

The Supreme Court of Canada released its unanimous decision in R. v. Vu this week, dealing with s. 8 of the Charter and the search and seizure of electronic devices such as computers and cellphones.

The police were interested in the potential theft of electricity for a specific home and obtained a search warrant. The warrant in this case did not specify the search of the accused’s computer in their Information to Obtain a Search Warrant (“ITO”), although it did indicate “computer generated notes.” The search revealed marijuana plants, and the charges included production of marijuana, possession of marijuana for . . . [more]

Constitutionnel : La Loi concernant la sélection des sénateurs et modifiant la Loi constitutionnelle de 1867 relativement à la limitation de la durée du mandat des sénateurs constitue une modification de la Constitution du Canada portant sur la question du mode de sélection des sénateurs.